


Hold Me Tight and Fear Me Not

by NoirSongbird



Series: Child Ballads [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ballad 39: Tam Lin, Dragon!Genji - Freeform, F/M, Mentions of Abortion, Shapeshifting, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unusual Erogenous Zones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 23:47:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8554450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirSongbird/pseuds/NoirSongbird
Summary: While working in Hanamura, Satya Vaswani finds a very strange man standing guard at Hanamura Castle. He seems to be half man, half dragon, and really, it only gets stranger from there.





	

**Author's Note:**

> As noted in the tags, this fic is inspired by one of the Child Ballads, Tam Lin! [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3yTEUnyYDA) is the particular version I was listening to while working on it~
> 
> Please enjoy!

Hanamura. The site of Vishkar’s latest contract, and, for Satya Vaswani, her new temporary home. She was pleased to be part of the redevelopment team here - and more pleased that there were no protests, not like in Rio de Janiero. She was not sure she could handle a repeat of the tangled swirl of emotions she had felt watching that place tear itself apart to throw Vishkar out.

It had led to far too much questioning. Much better to have a peaceful project like the one in Hanamura, which welcomed Vishkar with open arms.

The city was thriving and lively, but tragically run-down -- it had been, as she understood, several very difficult decades since the Shimada clan had been torn apart and the city shaken by the demise of the criminal organization that ran it for centuries. The sudden scraping-out of the city’s underbelly had left it shaken, economically and socially.

There were  _ stories,  _ about the demise of the Shimada. Fairy stories, Satya was certain, but there were stories nonetheless. Stories of the Shimadas’ own dragons turning on them, because of a brutal betrayal in the family, that treated the dragons as if they were real entities and not the product of what Satya suspected was a carefully-managed mythologizing campaign by the family.

There were further stories, of disappearances and deaths on the castle grounds, but they were entirely unverifiable and Satya was certain they were no more than fiction. Were she interested enough, she could have checked police records, but she absolutely was not interested enough.

Either way, the local residents had warned the Vishkar representatives away from the old Shimada Castle, which sat empty and, Satya was sure, was as much in need of restoration as the city itself.

Technically, it was, in fact, part of the land Vishkar controlled as part of their redevelopment. She was, she told herself, scouting a possible future workspace, and that was why she slipped through the gates of the old castle.

It was well after dark, but a full moon and a hovering orb of light not quite fully created into another shape let her see the grounds clearly. The castle was sprawling and ancient, but in terrible shape - more terrible than was suggested by simple age. She walked up to the strange large bell that hung at the center of the first covered area she found, running her fingers over it, and found a chip in the heavy bronze.

The entire place suggested the damage of violence - there were chunks taken out of the wood everywhere, like great scoring claw marks. It was easy to see where legends of rampaging dragons might have come from, if there was truly a civil war within the Shimada clan and they were already, superstitiously, associated with dragons. Clearly, they had been - dragons were  _ everywhere,  _ carved into surfaces and plastered in what must have been the clan’s  _ mon.  _ A simple, utterly ordinary story of a power struggle within an organized crime group, twisted in the telling to something mythological by the superstitious and gullible.

All the buildings, Satya was certain, could be revitalized with a little hard light. Clean up the damaged pieces, dust the place up a bit, perhaps convert it into apartments or maybe simply a historical site and tourist attraction. She could see it already - perhaps they could even play into the legends surrounding the place and give some sort of dramatized ghost tour, that would certainly draw a crowd. Tourism would certainly help Hanamura’s faltering economy, and there was so much beauty in the city that Satya was absolutely certain people would stay for more than a monument to a dead assassin clan.

She stepped into one of the courtyards, taking in the blooming cherry blossoms under the moonlight. If there was one thing to be said about the castle, it was that the trees seemed oddly well-tended and healthy, for no one having touched them since the place was abandoned. Satya walked up to one of the trees, delicately plucking one of the blossoms to examine it closer.

“You are bold, to enter Shimada Castle despite all warnings,” a voice said, and Satya tensed and spun around, already prepared to call up a photon shield to protect herself and going over potential turret placements in the area. She had not brought her photon gun, since she hadn’t expected trouble, but at least her hard light manipulation glove was a part of her. 

The one - the man - who had spoken laughed, seeing her tense form and fierce expression, and spread his arms wide in a universal gesture of meaning no harm. He was handsome, there was no doubt about that, with bright eyes and an easy smile, dressed in a white  _ gi  _ over a fitted undershirt. He wore light armored gauntlets and boots that looked like they had clawed feet, perhaps for climbing. A dramatic orange scarf caught a light breeze that blew through the courtyard, stirring up the cherry blossoms. The breeze also caught his hair - short, but spiked, and bright green, and that was about where Satya’s brain stopped acknowledging what her eyes were seeing because surely she was seeing things. Men did not have  _ antlers,  _ nor did they have - her gaze flicked back to his face - splatterings of scales over their cheeks and on their arms, or….or strange, serpentine dragon tails. 

“What, are you surprised? Were you not warned about the Shimada dragons?” He took a step closer to her, and she stood frozen, eyes wide, as she took in the strange creature in front of her. 

“Dragons do not exist,” Satya said, as if that would somehow change what was right in front of her. 

“And yet here I am, in defiance of that,” the man laughed. “I am Genji, last of the Shimada, and this is my castle. It’s quite rude of you to trespass, and to pluck my flowers besides.” Satya straightened at the accusation, putting on her best haughty, dismissive face, because perhaps if she reminded the creature of its proper place it would vanish.

“I am Satya Vaswani, Vishkar architech.” She gave him a brief, appraising look. “The Shimada are decades dead, this castle is no longer yours, and there are certainly plenty of flowers here,” she said, crossing her arms and staring down her nose at him despite them being the same height. “I do not need the approval of some fey creature to come and go from a place owned by the Vishkar Corporation.”

He looked a bit startled, and then he grinned.

“Not many people are willing to speak so to an ancient, immensely powerful creature,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“You look to me as if you are a man who happens to have scales, and regardless, I will speak however I want to you,” Satya replied sharply. He let out a startled little laugh.

“Do you often come into people’s homes and insult them?” He asked.

“Only when they earn it,” Satya replied. “I am certainly not going to bend knee in reverence to you, o dragon.” 

“Is that so,” he said, an eyebrow raised and a challenging expression on his face.

“It is,” she replied. He let out a snort, and there was another rush of wind, and in a swirl of cherry blossoms, he vanished.

She heard his voice, at her back, a low, almost flirtatious rumble.

“Visit again sometime, Satya Vaswani. You are the most interesting person I have seen in a very long time.”

Even his presence, then, was gone, and she was alone.

 

* * *

 

Satya did not return the next day, or the day after, or the day after that. It took her nearly a week to work up the courage to return to Shimada Castle; in the interim she told herself it did not matter, because surely what she had seen was a dream, and she was far too busy helping in the early stages of Hanamura’s redevelopment to waste time confirming that.

There were no Shimada dragons. There was no mysterious man who haunted the halls of the old castle. She must, certainly, have fallen asleep at the estate, and dreamed the whole thing.

Yet it nagged at her, tugging at the back of her mind. What if it  _ was  _ real, and there truly was a lonely soul trapped in that old, empty place? 

The only way to settle her doubts was to return to the castle.

She went during the day, the second time, so that there could be no doubt of what she saw. In the sunlight, the damage to the castle was even more obvious, and she found herself pausing at every claw mark and wondering. Were  _ all  _ the Shimada like Genji? Was that why they had chosen dragons as their symbol? Or was Genji something different?

Was Genji the last because he  _ was  _ the dragon?

A thousand questions, all predicated on Genji being objectively real and not a very elaborate figment of her imagination.

She walked back to that garden full of cherry blossoms, and once again plucked a flower -  _ repeat all steps,  _ so that ideally the time of day was the only variable.

“Hello, Miss Vaswani,” Genji said, and this time when she turned to face him, he gave her a brief bow. She bowed back, politely, as she understood the custom to be. 

(There were so many rules she was still learning, but following this one seemed to amuse him greatly.)

“Hello, Shimada-san.” She said, as she straightened. “Well.” She took a few steps forward. “You very much appear to be real.” He looked dumbfounded for a moment, and then burst into bright laughter.

“Yes, yes I am.” He spread his arms wide. “As real as you, Miss Vaswani. Would you like to touch and confirm?” He raised his eyebrows, and his smile became something blatantly suggestive, and she rolled her eyes. Nevertheless, she took a step forward, and rested her hands on his chest. Solid, yes, and the fabric felt like fabric. They travelled up, running over the scales on his cheeks - truly scales, not an odd skin pattern - and up, to brush over his hair and then slowly move over his antlers. He made a strange noise that sounded like a choked off groan, and Satya withdrew her hands quickly and stepped out of his space.

“What was  _ that?”  _ She asked, eyes slightly wide.

“Nothing, nothing,” he waved a hand, “it is. It is nothing.” He coughed, a clear attempt to dismiss, but she could see the edges of a flush on his cheeks. “In any case! You should sit, I have much I would like to ask of you. I have been bound within these walls since the fall of the Shimada - and it seems I have missed quite a lot.” He sank down onto the ground, settling comfortably among the cherry blossom petals, and Satya followed, though as she sat down, she made a brief gesture to create a small pillow out of light for her to settle onto. His eyes went wide. “What was  _ that?” _

“Hard light,” Satya said, and she smiled broadly and easily. This was her element, not supernatural creatures with...well. She did not want to consider too much what might have happened when she touched his antlers. She would simply not do it again. “It is why Vishkar is here, in Hanamura. Architechs like me can use hard light to build cities in a breath.”

“That’s  _ amazing, _ ” he leaned forward, with wonder in his (bright, amber, she noticed) eyes. “Tell me more. What does your Vishkar intend to do for Hanamura?”

“We will make it  _ better, _ ” she said, and she found herself launching excitedly into a detailed explanation of their plans, of the new city they would build and how much  _ better  _ it would be. He seemed to hang onto every word, asking questions that were remarkably intelligent and well-considered. For as much as he professed ignorance of the world beyond Shimada Castle, and as much as his information was out of date, Genji was quick and clever on the uptake, and Satya had never found someone quite so easy to talk to.

When the sun began to dip, she stood up, waving her fingers and sending the pillow dissolving back into light.

“Do you have to leave?” Genji asked, standing with her, eyes slightly pleading.

“I will return, I promise,” she said, “but if I stay away for too long, there will be consequences. Vishkar does not like its employees running too far amok.” He frowned, for a moment, but then nodded, briefly.

“Come back soon, Miss Vaswani,” he said, and then he vanished.

She slipped out of the gates and made her way back to the hotel the Vishkar representatives were staying in, humming the whole way back. It was strange, that a stranger could make her feel so light, but it was stranger still to have someone so very willing to  _ listen. _

 

* * *

 

She returned, as often and for as long as she could, eager to simply sit with Genji and talk. He made her feel comfortable in a way few people did; he seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say, and he had  _ so many  _ questions. He even listened without judging when she began speaking of her doubts, about Vishkar and their mission, about what they had done. His gentle assurances that it was okay to be uncertain and afraid to leave made her wonder exactly how familiar he was with this sort of situation, but she never asked - because any time she attempted to get him to tell her more about  _ himself,  _ he dodged the question. Eventually, it seemed easier to just not ask.

She took to bringing him small things from outside the castle - food, little gifts, a music player, things that might help his long, lonely days be a bit less so. He always seemed thoroughly excited, but when he thanked her for one gift with a kiss on the cheek, it set her to flushing and stuttering a little.

He had thought that was charming, and hadn’t done it again, but it had set her thinking.

She was becoming unaccountably  _ fond  _ of the bright, cheery dragon guardian of Shimada Castle. Fond in ways she could not risk, because Vishkar would undoubtedly not approve of her staying in Hanamura to...to pursue a relationship with a  _ myth _ . There was no room to request to stay longer, not really, not with an explanation that would be acceptable.

It was unfortunate, she supposed, but she would leave Hanamura - and Genji - behind. The project was moving at a quick clip, and there was no unrest, not here, so there was little need for Satya Vaswani, or for Symmetra, when other architechs could handle the work and she might be needed in areas where things were more...complex.

Still, when she was sitting with Genji among the cherry blossoms, or wandering the castle with him making minor repairs as she went (which never failed to fascinate; she supposed that if he hadn’t left the grounds in decades he never would have seen hard light in action) it was easy to forget that there was a theoretical time limit on all of this. 

Until Vishkar gave her an actual one.

One week was all the notice she received - not unusual, since all she had to do was pack, but in this case it felt  _ cruel.  _ One week to wrap up all her business in the city; usually not a problem, but...this time, there was Genji.

She dithered over how to tell him for a few days; silly, because really, what was going to happen? She would tell him she was leaving and that would be that. Still, it would be...sad, not to see him again. To leave and know that there would never be another evening spent laughing at his terrible jokes, or letting him braid flowers into her hair, or...anything at all.

She would go back to her lonely existence, and he would go back to his. 

She stepped past the gates, and almost as soon as she did, there he was, all smiles.

“Satya!” She had become  _ Satya  _ right around when he had become  _ Genji  _ instead of  _ Shimada-san,  _ and it was a warm, comforting thing to hear. She found herself smiling automatically, comforted by his warm, bright energy.

“Hello, Genji,” she greeted, and for a moment she wanted to completely forget that she was leaving and just spend another day with him. But...she sighed, and her apprehension must have shown in her expression, because he frowned back at her.

“Is something the matter?” He asked. “Did something happen?” There was an edge of concern in his tone.

“I…” Satya began, and she had to pause for a moment to compose herself. “Vishkar is sending me back to Utopaea. I am...leaving, in a few days,” she thought for a moment about calling it  _ going home _ , but that was not accurate. Somehow, home had become a cherry blossom-strewn courtyard, and a man with an easy smile and dragon antlers.

“So soon?” Genji asked. “When do you mean to return?” 

“I...cannot be sure. Possibly never.” She confessed.

“Ah,” His tail swayed back and forth behind him, and he looked thoughtful. “Come with me?” He asked, and she nodded, and he led her back to the courtyard of cherry blossom trees where they had first met. “I...Satya, I have found myself...quite enamored of you.” He confessed. “I will understand if you do not feel the same, but, if you do...I…” His tail swished behind him, and every line of his body language read “nerves” even to Satya’s eyes. “May I kiss you?”

Oh.  _ Oh.  _

“Yes,” she said, because if they were never going to see each other again, if this was the last chance she was going to have, she could do worse than indulging herself. And indulging him. She let him draw her in for a kiss, his gloved hand light on her cheek, and slid her arms around his shoulders, pulling him against her. She remembered his reaction, that first day, when she touched his antlers, and this time, when she moved a hand up to stroke at one, it was with intent. He made a desperate keening noise, pressing up against her and teasing his tongue against her lips. She parted them to allow him access, and twined her tongue with his, drawing it in. 

She had never given much thought to kissing, or to anything else, really; there was no time, and not a single partner Vishkar would approve of, anywhere. Her fellow architechs found her unpleasant and awkward; sleeping with a client would be terribly inappropriate. Sleeping with a  _ dragon?  _ That was an entirely different matter.

He broke from her briefly, and she took in his flushed face, his blown pupils, his panting breaths.

“Satya. Oh,  _ Satya,” _ he breathed, and then he leaned right back in, kissing with ferocity and intent. She could feel the press of his hardening cock against her thigh, and she had never felt so  _ desired  _ in her entire life. His hands trailed down her sides, seeking the zippers that held on her Vishkar uniform. He pulled back again for a moment when he found the one down her back, hesitating. “May I?” He asked.

“Yes,” she said, and he grinned, carefully pulling it down and helping her out of the top. His fingers traced over the now-bared skin, and he let out a little sigh. 

“So beautiful,” he murmured, and he carefully removed her bra, hands briefly cradling and squeezing her bared breasts, while she undid the belt at his waist and began peeling off the layers of his gi. His fingers moved into her hair, finding the pin and ties that kept it in its tight bun, and letting it cascade loosely around her shoulders. He reached for her visor and earpiece, but she shook her head.

“Leave them on, please,” she requested softly. Both were designed to help filter stimuli - she suspected she would need them.

“Alright,” he said. He reached down to release the clasps on his armored boots, and shed them and his pants at the same time, while she stepped out of her uniform pants and discarded her boots. The pieces of his body armor joined the rest of their clothes scattered across the courtyard, and he knelt in front of her, pressing kisses along her inner thighs as he slowly, reverently drew off her panties. His tail swished behind him, stirring up flower petals as it went, an easy to read sign of his eagerness if his obviously hard cock was not enough. She stepped out of them, and he nudged her thighs apart so he could fit between, delicately parting her lower lips with his fingers and leaning in to lap delicately at her clit. She let out a soft moan, and, encouraged, he dipped his tongue into her entrance. She let out a tiny, needy little gasp, and he kept going, eagerly tasting everything she had to offer.

“ _ Genji,” _ his name tumbled out as a wrecked moan. His tongue felt longer and more flexible than she thought was possible for a human - she took a brief moment to wonder if that was another of his draconic features, because she could now see there were scales trailing down his spine leading to the base of his tail and blossoming over his hips, but before she could even think to ask she was well and thoroughly distracted by everything he was  _ doing  _ with it. Her thighs trembled, and her hips gave little aborted bucks, pressing into his skillful mouth. “Ah,  _ yes,” _ she reached down to stroke his antlers, and she felt his groan rumble through her. 

He pulled away briefly, and grinned up at her. She could see slick shining on his lips, and it made her flush.

“Try my neck, I think you’ll like what happens.” He leaned back in, tongue resuming its work, and she slid her fingers down, brushing them over the skin of his throat. He  _ purred  _ against her, and she let out a loud gasping moan, orgasm crashing over her like a breaking wave. She was startled by how  _ good  _ it felt, and he kept going, drawing a second out of her before her knees began to go weak and she gently tugged on his hair, pulling him away. He pressed another kiss to her thigh, looking deeply self-satisfied, and then sat back, waiting for her to recapture her bearings.

“Would you like to keep going?” He asked, once her breathing was more visibly under control and her legs were no longer shaking. 

“Yes, please,” she said, kneeling down in front of him. He leaned forward to kiss her again, fingers twisting gently in her hair, and he laid her down among the flower petals, slotting himself between her thighs. 

She reached between them to wrap a hand around his cock, feeling the slightly inhuman ridged texture, and shuddered with excitement imagining having it inside her.

He broke from her lips to pepper kisses down her neck, and buried his face briefly at the junction between neck and shoulder. He inhaled briefly - scenting her, she supposed - and then sighed quietly.

“I will miss you, Satya,” he admitted, “but for now, I am going to have you in every way you will let me.”

“Yes,” she said, opening her legs a little more. “Make me yours, Genji Shimada, oh Dragon of Hanamura.” He growled low against her throat, and lined himself up with her entrance, sheathing into her in one sweet slide. He was long, and thick, and she had thought it was supposed to hurt, but she was so relaxed and pliant that it just felt  _ good  _ to be filled so thoroughly. He waited for a moment, but only a moment, before he began to rock into her, slow at first, and he gently nipped at her throat, sending tingles of sensation through her. His teeth were longer and sharper than a human’s, but he was gentle with them, and she tilted her head to give him more skin to kiss and bite. She reached around to drag her nails down his back, right at the edge of the scales, and she felt him shudder and groan over her. 

“ _ Satya,”  _ the way he said her name sent a tremor through her body, so wonderfully wrecked and wanting. He made it sound like a desperate entreaty to a deity. His hands gripped her thighs, lifting them up to change the angle of his thrusts slightly, and she let out a loud, desperate moan. She could feel his cock rubbing against something inside her that made her hips buck desperately, and she let out little gasping noises that were half-aborted moans. He wasn’t worrying about slow, by then, and the sensation was overwhelming. She could feel the scales at his hips rubbing along her inner thighs, and she wondered with some excitement if there would be marks there when he was done with her. 

She reached down and caught his chin with her hand, drawing his lips back to hers, and moaned into his mouth, wrapping her legs around his waist and meeting him thrust for thrust with eager bucks of her hips. 

He broke the kiss with a little desperate noise.

“I’m going to --” He began, and as much as she barely knew what she was doing, she had a fairly good idea of what he was starting to say.

“Then come for me,” she urged, purposely pitching her voice low and raking her nails back up his spine. He made a desperately eager noise, letting go of one thigh to move his hand between them and stroke her clit, giving a few more quick thrusts before she felt him spill inside her. He pressed just right on her clit, and she came with a pleasured scream, back arching off the ground.

When she came down, he was slowly sliding out of her, and he rolled off and laid on his back. There was a broad grin on his face, and she shifted to rest her head on his chest. His arm curled around her, holding her close, and he nuzzled his face in her hair. She felt sweaty and sticky and dirty, and she was certain there were petals clinging to places where petals did not belong, and ordinarily all of that would have distressed her terribly, but in that moment she did not care about any of it. All that mattered was how good she felt curled up against him.

 

* * *

 

It was four weeks after she returned to Utopaea that she began to realize something was very wrong. Her first sign was that her cycle was late - it had been well controlled and regular for most of her life, so the deviation was noticed, but she forced herself not to make anything of it. Then there was the fatigue, the headaches, the sickness. 

One of the other female architechs sarcastically asked if she was pregnant, and Satya had laughed off the possibility but had slipped out to purchase an at-home pregnancy test because, well, it couldn’t hurt to rule it out. 

Surely sex with a  _ dragon spirit  _ could not have such mundane, human consequences.

And yet she found herself alone in her private bathroom, staring at a positive test and trying to sort through the myriad of emotions that were cascading over her. 

First and foremost, a terrible, sharp  _ ache.  _ She missed Genji. She wanted to be sharing this with him, but he was far away, still trapped in Shimada Castle. Second, shock, horror, all the negative things that came bundled with a surprise as large as that one.

She went to Sanjay with the news, and he greeted it with a frown.

“Are you certain?” He asked, sounding deeply displeased.

“I am, yes,” she said. “As much as I can be without having seen a doctor.”

“Well. I am disappointed in you, Satya, I would not have expected you to be this careless. Do you have an idea of who the father might be?” He asked. She flinched.

“I am fairly certain I know,” she replied.

“A client, then? Or a fellow architech?” Before he even finished the sentence, she was shaking her head.

“No, neither. No one associated with Vishkar.” That was certainly true enough. 

“Well. You will handle this, I trust,” he said. 

There was a heavy implication of what  _ handling this  _ would mean. An architech could not have children weighing her down. An architech did not have that sort of luxury.

“If you wish to keep the child, of course, Vishkar will provide you with a severance package, but you will have to return all technology issued to you.” His eyes lingered heavy and long on her arm, and her chest seized with horror. The arm was not the only thing Vishkar had given her; her sensory aids were Vishkar tech, and there were implants under her skin to aid in her hard light creation. 

_ All  _ of that would go. She shuddered to think of life without it.

That was her choice, then: her child or everything Vishkar had given her.

That night, she lay in her bed and wept for hours, torn in ways she did not understand.

 

* * *

 

There was, she came to realize, a third choice. It took quite a lot of careful planning, and some slightly clumsy hiding of her slowly growing bump, but it was remarkable what a life mostly lived in devotion to the company could provide. People asked few questions about what Satya did, or where she went, or what she did with her money. She had a carefully maintained private account, one she had not expected to ever need but that she had created and kept for reassurance. A few careful withdrawals, some quiet purchases, and some discreet packing, and she was prepared.

She took a late-night flight to Hanamura, and when she arrived, the sun was just beginning to rise. She strode confidently through the city, not bothering to stop for anything, and practically barged through the gates of the castle, storming back into the courtyard. She dropped her bags there, and suddenly there was Genji, looking delighted.

“You came back,” he said, and his eyes flicked over her for a moment, before landing on her just barely visible bump. “Oh.  _ Oh.” _ He looked back up at her face.

“It is yours,” she said, sharply. “I am risking quite a lot to even  _ come  _ here, but I wanted to face you. I...cannot have this child, Genji, not when I will raise it alone, not when you are trapped here. I…” She pressed her face into her hands, shoulders sagging. 

Gentle fingers curled around hers, carefully bringing her hands away from her face.

“You will not have to be alone.” He said, voice soft. “I can be freed. I am not...it is a curse - or, rather, a bad bargain - that binds me here, not my nature.” 

“What?” Satya asked, voice soft. She had her suspicions, of course, but Genji had told her nothing of what he was.

“I was human, once,” he said. “My older brother was the heir to the clan’s empire, and I was the feckless, useless younger son who frittered away everything he had.” He laughed, a little sadly. “After our father died, the elders demanded Hanzo - my brother - bring me in line. By which, let us be perfectly clear, they meant  _ kill me. _ Hanzo refused, and we both fled, but we were caught. I...do not know what became of him. Perhaps he was able to slip out. All I know is that I was dying, and I reached out to the dragon spirits that had always protected us. They promised me my life, and my vengeance. I did not ask for the details.”

“The destruction of the clan…” She frowned.

“Was caused by the dragons, yes. By the dragons working through me.” He looked ashamed, and sad, and she wanted to reach out and embrace him. “After, I found I had become...this, and I was trapped here. I can only be freed by someone willing to accept both the dragon and the man.”

“Is that all?” Satya asked.

“You make it sound so simple,” he said, almost wonderingly.

“I love you, and I love this child already, and I want to have both of you. What do I have to do?” She asked.

“Hold me, and do not be afraid.” Genji replied. “I will...change, into a wolf, and a bear, and finally a dragon, but through all of it, it will be me, and I promise, I will not hurt you as long as you hold onto me. If you can hold on through all of that, I will be free.” He swallowed. “If not...you will die, and I will remain trapped.”

It was dangerous. Terribly dangerous. She knew that. It was also not the first dangerous thing she had ever done, and if it succeeded, he would be free, and they could…

They could  _ choose  _ to go wherever they wanted.

“I will do it.” She said, firmly.

“Are you certain?” Genji asked. She gave a sharp nod, and to emphasize, she threw her arms around him. They both sank to the ground, and she felt him begin to shift in her arms, form changing into that of an oversized, almost monstrous, wolf. She held on tighter, squeezing her eyes shut and burying her face in the wolf’s fur.

_ ‘It is Genji,’  _ she told herself,  _ ‘and he will not harm me.’  _

As if in answer to her certainty, he began to change again, and it was a struggle to hold on this time, because the bear was so much larger, but she kept hanging on, reminding herself over and over that  _ this was Genji, and he would not harm her. _

Finally, he shifted one last time, and she found her arms full of a large, green dragon, wingless and serpentine, coiling around her body. She buried her face in his mane.

“Come home to me, Genji,” she whispered, and with a racking shudder, he changed one last time, back into the man she knew, left naked and shivering and still half-dragon. Almost without thinking, she created a cloak out of hard light, draping it around his shoulders and pulling him close to her. He curled into her embrace, resting his head on her shoulder.

“You did it,” he said, a tone of pure wonder in his voice. “I’m free.”

“And still a dragon,” she said, a little dryly. He laughed.

“And still a dragon, but a dragon who can go wherever he pleases, and be with whomever he pleases.” He leaned up and kissed her, long and slow, and she sighed happily.

Genji was not the only one who was, suddenly and finally, free.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr at [noirsongbird](http://noirsongbird.tumblr.com)!


End file.
